1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a printing system that performs a printing process and a post-process after completion of warm-up of a post-processing device, on the basis of a job which includes a post-process, while effectively utilizing a warm-up time.
2. Related Art
A printing system includes a printing machine that prints an image on a sheet on the basis of a job, and a post-processing device that performs a post-process on a sheet printed by the printing machine.
The printing machine, for example, has detachably provided thereto an ink cartridge storing ink for each color and, with ink being supplied to an ink-jet head from the ink cartridge, ejects ink toward the sheet from a nozzle of the ink-jet head to print an image or a character thereon.
In addition, the post-processing device is provided with various types of post-processing functions, according to the applications. A post-processing function is, for example, a function of performing an enclosing-and-sealing process in which a printed sheet is folded, and enclosed and sealed in an envelope as a content, and a bookbinding process in which the spine of a book is glued to bind the book. Although the post-processing device has a function of performing one or more of post-processes among the post-processes, warm-up of the post-processing device is required for raising the glue temperature or the like, when performing the enclosing-and-sealing process or the bookbinding process.
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2007-163559 proposes a technique relating to an image forming device that calculates the processing time of a job which does not include a post-process requiring warm-up to be performed, among a plurality of preliminarily set jobs, calculates a warm-up completion time of a post-processing device, and, before completion of the warm-up of the post-processing device, determines the order of performing a plurality of jobs which has been set by an input operation unit to perform the jobs, on the basis of the processing time of the job and the warm-up completion time of the post-processing device.
However, since the technique of the aforementioned patent literature performs the job which does not include a post-process to be performed before completion of the warm-up of the post-processing device, there has been a case where a job which includes a post-process to be performed after completion of the warm-up of the post-processing device cannot be performed.
When, for example, a job is performed which does not include a post-process to be performed before completion of the warm-up of the post-processing device, if sheet settings (size, thickness and quality of sheet) are different among respective jobs, there is a case where no paper feed tray exists which places sheets corresponding to the sheet setting of the job that does not include a post-process to be performed. In such a case, a user is supposed to remove one of the currently provided paper feed trays and replace it with a paper feed tray having placed thereon sheets corresponding to the sheet setting of the job that does not include a post-process to be performed. On this occasion, assuming that sheets corresponding to the job which includes a post-process to be performed are placed on the removed paper feed tray, there arises a problem that print sheets may be recognized as “running out of sheets” after having performed the job which does not include a post-process to be performed and therefore it is impossible to perform a job which includes a post-process to be performed after completion of the warm-up of the post-processing device.